I think of that motion as moving my elbow forward as it bends. It starts as a reach back. Then I turn my hips. As I turn my hips I start to bend my arm. I continue pushing my elbow further out. Finally there is a slight pause THEN you explode out and rotate. Really at this point you don't have much choice in exploding out. As someone said it is a release.

From my experience in frame 1 -3 you are moving forward - not so much rotating. 1- 3 is all about getting into the power zone aka the right pec position.

EDIT: Got carried away talking. Yes, what you are describing sounds like you are coming around too fast with the shoulder and you probably aren't getting the forearm stop + sling out\whip-action

Try keeping your back foot down until the disc is coming out or away from you. It'll help keep your shoulders from turning too fast. You can add power as you feel better with the motion. If you do it too fast, too soon, you risk hyper extending the elbow.

This is where I fail. I have a hard time getting my shoulders to turn that 1st 90 degrees without actively turning them. Do I just need to be more active with my lower body or what? Any tips/comments/thoughts on this?

black udder wrote:Notice where the disc is, where his feet are and where his shoulders are at this point in the throw. ... but this is kinda where you wanna be.

QFT. I tried lowering my arm to that level and instantly started to feel the elbow chop and overall snap better. I can now throw 350' with almost zero effort and out of the about 30 throws I had time to throw before the parking lot lights turned off only 2 didn't go exactly where I wanted them to go (and they were only about 15' feet or so off the line (@ 330' distance). Also made it really easy to hit the nose down angle better.

I'd been having trouble with consistency, accuracy, OAT (which I really noticed only now that it was eliminated) and keeping the nose down (and not hitting the ground 60' in front of me if I could keep it down) but on a good roll was hitting 340-350'. That demanded a lot of effort though. Just this little fix made everything better.

I'm not saying that it'll stay this good all the time, but I did test it again later with a few throws down the street and across one road (very late in the evening and with a spotter of course, no cars parked on the street, only one or two buildings) that's uphill and still hit 315' consistently (with a Groove none the less, a disc I don't mind losing). It all just feels so... easy now.

Parks wrote:If the posts on this forum are any indication, the PD is like a Teebird with sunshine coming out of its butthole so hard that it flies faster.

black udder wrote:Notice where the disc is, where his feet are and where his shoulders are at this point in the throw. ... but this is kinda where you wanna be.

QFT. I tried lowering my arm to that level and instantly started to feel the elbow chop and overall snap better. I can now throw 350' with almost zero effort and out of the about 30 throws I had time to throw before the parking lot lights turned off only 2 didn't go exactly where I wanted them to go (and they were only about 15' feet or so off the line (@ 330' distance). Also made it really easy to hit the nose down angle better.

I have been trying to get my pull line lower (see my video critique thread) and have been really concentrating on keeping my forearm parallel to the ground throughout the pull. Seeing that picture of Feldberg makes me think that maybe I should let my wrist be lower than my elbow instead of trying to keep my forearm so flat. I too have been having some problems with OAT and go for stretches where I am flipping everything that I intend to have come out flat. The flight reminds me when I was at my worse strong-arming stage, but I now have a much later pull so it's a new thing that is causing it. I didn't think to try to have my forearm pointing down, but it is worth trying out to see the effect.

I've got this same problem, but throwing forehand. I strong-arm the disc to the point where my arm hurts after only 9 holes or 10 minutes throwing in a field. From what I've been reading on this post, it sounds like the drill for backhand might be applicable to forehand as well. A guy I played with the other night had me start off standing shoulders lined up with the basket (sideways) arm limp, then suddenly twist my hips till my chest was facing the basket, and naturally my arm would follow in a whipping motion, leading with the elbow. Like snapping a towel, but powering with your hips. The one thing I'm not sure of with this is what to do with my legs. We didn't get that far. I want to take a step just before i snap my torso to the front, but it always feels awkward

I - like a lot of other beginners from a baseball background - was naturally good at the forehand. Following this guys instruction about how to get the legs into it gave more power. I had discs turning late in flight that used to be straight flyers for me!

evansr10 wrote:I've got this same problem, but throwing forehand. I strong-arm the disc to the point where my arm hurts after only 9 holes or 10 minutes throwing in a field. From what I've been reading on this post, it sounds like the drill for backhand might be applicable to forehand as well. A guy I played with the other night had me start off standing shoulders lined up with the basket (sideways) arm limp, then suddenly twist my hips till my chest was facing the basket, and naturally my arm would follow in a whipping motion, leading with the elbow. Like snapping a towel, but powering with your hips. The one thing I'm not sure of with this is what to do with my legs. We didn't get that far. I want to take a step just before i snap my torso to the front, but it always feels awkward

I have a 150 Star Teebird that I really like for forehands. It's really easy to overpower and strong arm it into the ground so I have to concentrate more on the mechanics that lead to good snap. Of course I only throw it 250-275' so I might not be the best person to listen to.

evansr10 wrote:I've got this same problem, but throwing forehand. I strong-arm the disc to the point where my arm hurts after only 9 holes or 10 minutes throwing in a field. From what I've been reading on this post, it sounds like the drill for backhand might be applicable to forehand as well. A guy I played with the other night had me start off standing shoulders lined up with the basket (sideways) arm limp, then suddenly twist my hips till my chest was facing the basket, and naturally my arm would follow in a whipping motion, leading with the elbow. Like snapping a towel, but powering with your hips. The one thing I'm not sure of with this is what to do with my legs. We didn't get that far. I want to take a step just before i snap my torso to the front, but it always feels awkward

not sure what you mean by strong arm until your arm hurts, but it sounds like you're using too much arm to throw a forehand. when I see people on the course turning over all their forhands into rollers, its usually because they hold on to the disc and they are throwing with their arm, so they the disc just topples over as their arm comes through. i love to equate the forehand to a racquetball kill shot, if youve ever played racquetball. You wait for the ball to get as close to the ground as you can, then you just drive it forward at the last second. When I throw my long forhand flat shots, i just visualize down the fairway the line I want to throw on, and then just focus on the hyzer release of the discs on that line, and all of the distance comes from having a loose wrist and keeping the nose of the disc flat and hyzered. The main thing for the distance is the wrist has to be loose and let the disc whip out.

alot of my friends including myself, all played ultimate frisbee before disc golf, and we all seem to be strong forehand throwers. if you can play catch with an ultimate disc using your forehand and getting the disc to come out of your hand with no wobblle, just smooth flight right out of your hand, then you will probably know what it feels like at the hit on a forehand drive, it is very similar. Use lots of loose wrist snap.

...he was throwing a domey Star Wraith. This reminded me of all the discussion on this thread. Josh's form is highly efficient, he is all levers and hinges, and his body positions are well set up to generate late acceleration/snap.

Question: according to Keltik's diagram/discussion with Blake, the arm is not supposed to be fully extended (this is mentioned in the articles on the main site as well). Are you supposed to stiffen/stop the arm/extension as you go into the follow through to help facilitate the wrist extention? Obviously the arm continues to move, but do you STOP it from extending all the way as you pull?

Yeah, this really turned out to be a nice angle to film his throw. In the frame-by-frame version I notice all sorts of things in his motion that I've never thought about before, and maybe new things to try...

For one, notice how Josh kicks his right heel out/up ahead of his toes as he is moving forward, and this forces his hips closed, but when his right foot comes down it rotates back to point ~85 degrees (to the target) and this goes with opening of the hips.

Another thing, notice how the disc is oriented nose down from the reach back, still nose down (even more) into the chest, and through to the release the nose is always down. Down down down down. Cool.

And another thing, his grip just going into the hit shows his index finger is straight out of the hand, out to the first from top knuckle, then bent back under the rim from there, while his other fingers are tucked in at the top knuckle. His thumb is right over the tip of the index finger.

And another thing, he pivots on his heel, but his back foot pushes off the inside edge of his foot down through his toes. This kick coincides exactly in time with the hit. Then his plant foot shifts onto the ball and he spins forward off the tee, seems like you need proper weight forward just to pull this off.